Issue - meetings

To receive a briefing on the LDF Panel and its activities

The Committee received a report from the Spatial Planning Manager on the activities of the Local Development Framework Panel (LDF Panel). The report provided an overview of the work of the LDF Panel during the past year and outlined the work programme for the forthcoming year.

Under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the Council was required to prepare a statutory development plan to guide the future planning and development of towns, villages and countryside for the next 15 years. The Local Development Framework (LDF) would be a single plan for Cheshire East and would replace the Regional Spatial Strategy, the Cheshire Structure Plan, Cheshire Waste and Minerals Plans and the Local Plans for Congleton, Macclesfield and Crewe and Nantwich.

The LDF Panel was established with Members representing all parts of the Borough to act as a sounding board to provide a steer to officers throughout the early stages of preparing the plan.

Policies for planning would be Borough wide but where required there may be adjustments to policies for specific areas.

Currently Section 106 was used to put money into local areas which were affected by planning developments. New proposals would spread the money across a larger area to ensure that strategic as well as local priorities were being met and the consideration was given to the wider impacts of developments than under Section 106.

The LDF process had an agreed timetable and was on target to provide a draft plan in 2012 and a core strategy would be sent to Planning Inspectorate in 2013 with site allocations being agreed in 2014. The only way that this process could be speeded up would be to reduce the time spent on consultation with the public. This wasn’t seen by officers as an option as they felt consultation with people across the whole borough was important to give everyone a say.

The LDF document would have a life time of 15 years until about 2030. The core strategy would be relevant for the life of the document and site allocations would need to be reviewed after ten years. LDF document was a living document that would change over time but would still be centred on the same core strategy.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted and the Spatial Planning Manager be thanked for attending.